Atomic Systems

Hello

I live in the Southeastern franchise and in general they do a pretty good job, i have a question re the whole franchise business. Do the train company actually own the trains?, for example when connex lost their franchise did they give all their trains to Southeastern?, i keep hearing about businesses buying new trains but what happens to them if they loose their franchise?

hope that makes sense

Generally, the Trains are owned by ROSCOs, which then long-term-lease the trains to the operators, part of the contract is they are painted in the operators colours. There are some exceptions to this rule where the operator owns stock, but I can't think of any!

The UK ROSCOs are
Angel Trains – HSBC Rail – Porterbrook – QW Rail Leasing – Sovereign Trains

Google them if you want to find out what they own. Some, especially Angel Trains and Porterbrook have quite good pages about each member of stock, or at least 'picture' galleries.

Richard

First Group own some HST power cars, and possibly some trailers. SWT own the lymington units. EWS (DB Schenke?) own their ex-BR locos (37s, 60s), and I would imagine they own their ex-BR wagons, but I'm not so sure of that. Freightliner Intermodal probably own some of their rolling stock too, as I imagine DRS would with their ancient locos.

I guess that having the leasing companies would also make it easier when moving stock around (e.g. 158s moving to/from Northern and the 442s going to Southern/GatEx)

Glenn